The IDF plans to deploy a battery of the Iron Dome missile defense system in the Dan area in the coming days. The deployment is part of and IDF exercise that will examine the preparedness of the center of the country for a missile attack, similar to the attacks that occurred in northern Israel during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Residents of the center of the country will be able for the first time to witness how the system deflects incoming rockets, such as those in the possession of Hamas and Hizbullah. The systems will be deployed in Tel Aviv and its suburbs for several days, during which security officials will determine, among other things, the best places to deploy the systems in order for them to act most effectively.

IDF officials stressed that there was no specific security reason for the system to be deployed at this particular time – other than the fact that it is part of a wide-ranging security exercise that had been long planned. An IDF statement said that the system “was active,” and that “at various times it is deployed in different parts of the country. This week, as part of a security exercise, the system will be deployed in the Dan Region for several days.”

The IDF has been preparing for the possibility of a massive missile attack on the Tel Aviv area for at least the past several years. In 2009, then-IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin said that Hamas had succeed in firing a rocket with a 60 kilometer range. The rocket was apparently made in Iran, and the crew that shot had may have undergone training in Iran or Syria, Yadlin said – adding that such missiles could hit Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport, and other locations in central Israel.